


Can't Get the Balance Right

by ViaLethe



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/pseuds/ViaLethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne doesn't understand how it's possible to fall in love with someone she's never really met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Get the Balance Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cantarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantarina/gifts).



> For cantarina, who wanted 'twisteddarkwrong Ariadne/Mal.' I hope it comes close to fitting at least some of that!

How do you fall in love with someone you've never known?

Then again, some days Ariadne's not sure she ever knew any of them; Arthur, Cobb, Eames, Yusef. They all disappear in the currents of her mind, lost like a dream that fractures and fades away with the blare of an alarm.

Some days she's not sure whether she's dreaming or awake, which world she's wandered into without any idea of where she'll end up. Her totem's the right weight, tips over in just the right way; but then, if these are her dreams, it would, wouldn't it?

But these have to be dreams, these times she finds herself leaving an elevator she can't remember getting on, because Mal's here; Mal who she's never truly met, Mal who was dead and gone long before Ariadne knew it was possible for dreams to live.

“Why are you here?” Ariadne asks. “You're not supposed to be here.”

Mal doesn't smile – Ariadne's never seen her smile, not really – but she looks like she might want to. “Always so inquisitive. Why don't you tell me what you think?”

Ariadne watches her, watches the tall, slim lines of Mal, all wrapped up in red silk like a living flame, and swallows hard. “Cobb used to say that the most resilient parasite is an idea. And that's all you really were – all you really are. An idea.”

“So you think I crossed from Dom's mind to yours?” Mal asks, coming closer, tracing one hand over Ariadne's shoulder, down her arm. It's disconcerting, the way Mal always makes her feel so small, so fragile, like her perspective's gotten all twisted; she looms over Ariadne until she's all there is to see. “Why would I do that?”

“You wouldn't.” Her whole arm is goosebumps now, from her shoulder down to her fingers, curled around the bishop in her pocket. Still the right weight, still the right feel. “These are my dreams. And that means I brought you here.”

Mal stops behind her, one arm wrapping around her ribs, fingers stroking the curve of her waist, the other settling on her upper arm. Her breath feels impossibly warm against Ariadne's ear; _she's just a shade_ , Ariadne thinks, _just a dead thing, a projection of...of what?_

“I don't know what's possible anymore,” she whispers, and feels Mal's smile in the way her fingers tighten, digging into her bones; in the way her breath comes faster against her throat. “I need to understand.”

“I know who you are,” Mal says, and somehow it sounds less like a threat and more like a promise. “I can show you what to believe.”

Mal kisses just the way she looks, all strong and bold and beautiful, and Ariadne chooses to forget; to forget the way Mal's fingers worm into her pocket, to forget the missing weight in her hand.

This feeling is the only thing she wants to believe in.


End file.
